The winning ways of a losing strategy: educationalizing social problems in the united states

Educational Theory

Volumn 58, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 447-460

  Labaree, David F ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 65249131735     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2008.00299.x     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (31)

1. This essay draws in part from David F. Labaree, "Educational Formalism and the Language of Goals in American Education, Educational Reform, and the History of Education" (paper presented at the "Proofs, Arguments, and Other Reasonings: The Language of Education" conference, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, May 2008).
2. David Bridges, "Educationalization: On the Appropriateness of Asking Educational Institutions to Solve Social and Economic Problems," included in this symposium.
3. For a more extended discussion of these three social uses for education, see David F. Labaree, "Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals," American Educational Research Journal 34, no. 1 (1987): 39-81.
4. I am grateful to my colleague, Francisco Ramirez, for suggesting that individualism is at the heart of our tendency to seek solutions to social problems by means of education (personal communication with Francisco O. Ramírez, May 20, 2008).
5. Leah Gordon, "The Question of Prejudice: Social Science, Education, and the Struggle to Define The Race Problem' in Postwar America, 1940-1970" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008).
6. James G. March, "Education and the Pursuit of Optimism," Texas Tech Journal of Education 2, no. 1 (1975): 5.
7. Ibid., 11.
8. Bridges, quot;Educationalization," 466.
9. Ibid., 463.
10. Richard F. Elmore and Milbrey W. McLaughlin, Steady Work (Santa Monica, California: Rand, 1988), 36.
11. Bridges, "Educationalization."
12. David Tyack, "Forming the National Character," Harvard Education Review 36, no. 1 (1966): 29-41;
13. John Meyer, David Tyack, Joanne Nagel, and Audri Gordon, "Public Education as Nation-Building in America: Enrollments and Bureaucratization in the American States, 1870-1930, "American Journal of Sociology 85, no. 3 (1979): 591-613;
14. Francisco O. Ramírez and John Boli, "The Political Construction of Mass Schooling: European Origins and Worldwide Institutionalization," Sociology ofEducation 60, no. 1 (1987): 2-18;
15. Francisco O. Ramiirez, "The Nation-State, Citizenship, and Educational Change: Institu-tionalization and Globalization," in International Handbook of Education and Development: Preparing Schools, Students, and Nations for the Twenty-First Century, eds. William Cummings and Noel McGinn (New York: Pergamon, 1997);
16. and William Cummings, "Patterns of Modern Education," in International Handbook of Education and Development, eds. Cummings and McGinn.
17. Theodore W. Schultz, "Investment in Human Capital," in The Structure of Schooling, eds. Richard Arum and Irenee R. Beattie (Mountain View, California: Mayfield, 2000);
18. Eric Hanushek and Dennis Kimko, "Schooling, Labor Force Quality, and the Growth of Nations," American Economic Review 90, no. 5(2000): 1184-1208.
19. Richard Rubinson and Irene Browne, "Education and the Economy," in The Handbook of Economic Sociology, eds. Neil Smelser and Richard Swedborg (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996);
20. and Francisco O. Ramirez, Xiaowei Luo, Evan Schofer, and John W. Meyer, "Student Achievement and National Economic Growth," American Journal of Education 113, no. 1 (2006): 1-29.
21. Raymond Boudon, Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality: Changing Prospects in Western Society (New York: Wiley, 1974),
22. and Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Yossi Shavit, "Persisting Barriers: changes in Educational opportunities," in The Structure of Schooling, eds. Arum and Beattie.
23. Karl Weick, "Educational Organizations as Loosely-Coupled Systems," Administrative Science Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1976): 1-19;
24. and Charles E. Bidwell, "The School as a Formal Organization," in Handbook of Organizations, ed. James M. March (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965).
25. Dan C. Lortie, Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).
26. David K. Cohen, "Teaching Practice: Plus Ça Change," in Contributing to Educational Change: Perspectives on Research and Practice, ed. Philip W. Jackson (Berkeley, California: McCutchan, 1988).
27. For a more detailed analysis of the way schools as ongoing organizational enterprises redirect reform impulses and reconstruct social goals around their own needs and interests, see David F. Labaree, "Limits on the Impact of Educational Reform: The Case of Progressivism and U.S. Schools, 1900-1950" (paper presented at "The Century of the School" conference, Monte Verita, Ascona, Switzerland, September 2007).
28. John Meyer, "The Effects of Education as an Institution, American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 1 (1977): 55-77;
29. John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, "The Structure of Educational Organizations," in Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality, eds. John W. Meyer and William R. Scott (Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1983);
30. and John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, "Institutionalized Organizations," American Journal of Sociology 83, no. 2 (1997): 340-363.
31. David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: Reflections on a Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995).